


The Care and Keeping of Your Grumpy Ex-Changeling BFF

by fourshoesfrank



Series: autism........but in SPACE [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Gen, Showers, Solid!Odo, autistic odo, but platonically, is it rlly a chic fic if theres not an autism headcanon in there, no funny business here None of That, sensory issues, showering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 16:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20118295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: Nerys helps Odo figure out how to shower.





	The Care and Keeping of Your Grumpy Ex-Changeling BFF

**Author's Note:**

> *eric idle voice* and now, uh, frontal nudity

“Odo to Kira.”

  
Nerys stops brushing her teeth and picks up her combadge from the edge of the bathroom sink. She presses it and responds, “Kira here. Go ahead, Constable.”

  
Odo doesn’t go ahead. The combadge stays silent in Nerys’ hand. She waits for any word from Odo for two minutes, but nothing comes through, not even the quiet staticky buzz that indicates an open comm line. That‘s odd, Odo hates leaving people hanging.

  
She presses it and asks, “Odo, what’s going on?”

  
She doesn’t get a response on the combadge, but she does hear a soft knock on the door. It‘s almost too quiet to register as a knock instead of the sound of one of her neighbors dropping something, but Nerys knows what it is. Odo is knocking on her door. It has to be him; absolutely nobody else would be visiting her at this hour.

  
Nerys rinses off her toothbrush and opens the door. She’s greeted with the sight of Odo wearing what has to be the only civilian outfit he owns. It’s essentially the same as his uniform, plain beige pants and a brown shirt, just cut differently. He stands outside her quarters, looking past her into the room. He doesn’t have his combadge on.

  
“I have a question,” he says abruptly. Nerys nods, an invitation for him to continue, but he doesn’t. Maybe he needs a verbal cue.

  
“What’s your question, Odo?”

  
“How do the showers on this station operate?” he asks her, shifting his stare to the ground between his feet. Nerys can’t quite process what he needs from her, if that’s his problem. He needs help with the shower? Why would anyone...

  
The image of Odo wearing Chief O’Brien’s spare uniform after returning from the Gamma Quadrant rises to the front of her mind. She realizes what Odo’s asking of her, to be his guide in a completely foreign activity, and any thoughts she might have had about handing him the manual and saying she was too tired have been expelled from her mind. It’s been four days since Odo was changed into a Solid, a human, with all the sweat glands and dandruff and other bodily functions that come with a human body. Nerys can’t imagine the amount of difficulty he must be having with adjusting to the change.

  
“Do you want me to show you, or tell you?” she asks, leaving Odo the decision of how vulnerable he’s going to get in front of her. His answer surprises her.

  
“Show me,” he requests.

  
Nerys looks at him, at how stiff he’s holding himself, like he’s waiting for a criminal to pop out of the walls so he’ll have an excuse to exit the situation, and says, “Are you sure?” She gets a nod from him for an answer. He knows what he’s doing, that nod tells her. Nerys steps back into her quarters and gestures for Odo to follow her in.

  
He steps into the room and looks around with the jerky, twitchy motions that he tends to make when he’s unsure of himself, or of what he’s doing. Nerys gives him a smile and hopes it looks real. She hopes that her own minor misgivings aren’t making their way to her face, because Odo doesn’t need to worry about her.

  
They walk to the bathroom together, but Nerys is the only one who approaches the shower door. She looks back at Odo, wondering what exactly is making him hesitate. Is he uncomfortable doing this in her quarters? Is he having second thoughts? Nerys has no reference for how he would behave in this situation, so she has no way of knowing what’s going on in his head.

  
“Should I undress?”

  
Nerys’ mind returns to the task at hand. She shakes her head quickly. “No, not if you use the sonic setting.”

  
“All the showers’ sonic settings are broken,” Odo informs her. “Chief O’Brien and Doctor Bashir came by my office to report it earlier today. They claimed that the malfunctions are potentially harmful to Bajorans; something about the way your optical nerves are wired.”

  
Nerys sighs, but only internally. Nudity it is, then.

  
“I guess you should get undressed,” she says. He nods and pulls his shirt over his head, but after his shirt is off, he stops. Nerys frowns and takes a step closer to him. He takes a step back towards the door.

  
Nerys stops immediately. She raises her hands slightly, the way she would raise them in front of a frightened animal. _Don’t run off,_ her hands say; _I’m here to help_. She watches Odo carefully, trying to determine what’s making him so reluctant to prepare for the shower. Is it the impending nudity, the vulnerability? Or is it the shame from having to ask for help with this relatively mundane activity? Nerys just barely resists the impulse to shake her head and sigh; this man didn’t even have a body that needed cleaning until four days ago. Showering must seem like a monumental task.

  
“Odo,” she says softly, making no movements aside from those of her mouth, “it’s alright. I’ll do whatever you need me to do in order to help you.”

  
“Who says I need your help?” he retorts gruffly. Nerys snorts. Trust this man to be sarcastic, even under circumstances like these. She isn’t going to play along, though. It’s late, and this is already taking longer than it should have because the damn sonic setting is broken.

  
“You need my help, you wouldn’t have come here otherwise.” With that, Nerys begins removing her own clothing as she tells him, “There’s no need to be embarrassed, or scared, or whatever you’re feeling right now. We’re friends, Odo, right? This is just another thing that friends do.”

  
Having stripped down to her undergarments, Nerys waits for Odo to do the same. When he makes no move to do so, she slowly crosses the room, places both of her hands on his shoulders, and looks him fully in the eyes. When he finally meets her gaze, she’s surprised by the fear in his eyes. This is more than simple apprehensiveness. She’s looking at full-blown panic, and she curses herself for not realizing the depth of it earlier.

  
“Odo,” Nerys says, keeping her voice firm, but not authoritative. She thinks that if she were to order him around, it would only make things worse. Nerys can be gentle, when she wants to be, despite popular belief.

  
Odo does not respond verbally, but he tilts his head to the left in a way that makes her think that he’s asking a question. But what’s his question?

  
“Odo, it’s alright,” she says again (has she told him that already? she can’t remember exactly) with a small, hopefully reassuring smile. “It’s alright if you feel a little scared right now. But, honestly, you stink like sweat, and you need to get in the shower.” It’s true; this close to him, Nerys can smell Odo’s body odor very well. It’s not that bad, but she’d rather get rid of it now than deal with it later. Something in her reassurance must have flicked a switch somewhere in Odo’s mind, because he begins toeing off his shoes.

  
He takes off his pants, folds them up, and places them on top of his shirt. He adds his shoes to the stack and moves the entire thing to the doorway. His underwear is still on when he turns to her and asks, “What now?”

  
Nerys can’t believe she didn’t notice the slight tremble in his voice before.

  
She gestures vaguely at the shower and says, “We’re gonna shower the old fashioned way, I guess.” She makes one final effort to tamp down any misgivings she has about this, because she’s doing this for Odo and he doesn’t need another reason to be nervous.

  
Odo nods gruffly, but he doesn’t do anything else. Nerys grips him gently by the shoulder and walks with him to the shower. When they’re both inside, she turns away from him in the cramped space and directs his attention to the shower controls.

  
“This controls the temperature, this one controls the water pressure, you can add trace elements to the water with this panel, that one lets you set a timer for how long you want to be in the shower, and you push this button to activate or deactivate the water. Go ahead, mess around with the settings for a while. They can take some getting used to.”

  
Nerys steps as far back from the controls as she can, which isn’t far, but it gives Odo enough room to get closer to the panel so he can see what he’s doing. She watches from over his shoulder as he touches buttons and turns dials, hesitantly at first, but with more confidence as time goes on. _He’s getting the hang of it_, she thinks. _Maybe I shouldn’t stick around much longer. _

  
“Once you’ve got the settings where you want them, I can leave, if you’d like,” Nerys offers. Odo barely waits for her to finish her sentence before declining.

  
“There is still...more that I don't know about this,” he tells her. Nerys raises her eyebrows in surprise, and opens her mouth to ask him what in the name of the Prophets he’s talking about, and just as she’s about to start forming a question with her mouth, she thinks of the answer. He’s talking about the actual activity of showering, part where one gets clean. Nerys should’ve known that she has to stay for this.

  
“I’ll replicate some soap,” she says by way of answering, confirming to Odo that she’ll stick around. She squeezes past him out of the shower, out of the bathroom, and into the main room of her quarters, where the replicator is located.

  
Nerys enters a request for her usual North Bajoran soap, but then she remembers that it causes rashes and hives when humans use it. She searches up a generic human-friendly soap and replicates that instead.

  
When Nerys returns to the bathroom, Odo has the water in the shower running. He’s standing completely still under the current, letting it flow over his body.

  
He hasn’t taken off his undergarments. Nerys knocks on the glass door once to get his attention, tells him to shut off the water for a minute, and pulls him out of the shower as soon as there’s no danger of flooding the bathroom. He looks confused as he exits the shower, and Nerys thinks she can see a hint of embarrassment in his face. She quickly tells Odo that he didn’t do anything wrong, he just forgot one step of the showering process.

  
“You need to take off your undergarments, Odo. Humanoids take showers completely nude.”

  
“I know that, but because you’re here, I thought—“

  
“Bajorans aren’t as vigilant about nudity as humans are, Odo. I’m fine with getting naked for this, as long as you’re okay with it as well. I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to.”

  
“Can you promise that?” Odo asks, and Nerys’ heart breaks a little. She’s so unused to seeing him like this, in a situation that isn’t totally under his control. She knows that this must take a lot of trust, and she’s determined to earn that trust.

  
She nods. “I promise.”

  
Without another word, Odo pulls off his wet underwear and puts them next to his dry clothing by the door. He’s naked now. He stands before Nerys in the nude, and Nerys _looks_ at him.

  
His skin is smooth. That’s the first thing she notices, how strangely smooth his skin looks. He’s unmarked by scars or freckles, nor can Nerys make out his pores. He must have them, though, because he sweats now. He sweats, and that’s why he needs to take a shower soon, but Nerys just wants to look at him first.

  
Odo’s body isn’t very eye-catching, unless the person looking is really into smooth-skinned people. He isn’t anything like the ideal human man, with his lack of prominent muscles and the subtle layer of fat around his middle. Odo looks like an average middle-aged human man; at least, his body looks like one. His face is different, of course, but that’s what makes it his.

  
She’s done looking. Nerys quickly takes off her own undergarments and joins Odo in the shower. He turns the water back on and turns to her, as if to ask, _What now?_

  
“Pick up the soap,” Nerys instructs. Odo does so. “Now rub it on your body where you want to get clean.”

  
She keeps her instructions simple, easy to follow and understand, so that Odo doesn’t get overwhelmed. She keeps reminding herself that he’s never taken a shower before in his life, so everything is new to him. Absolutely everything.

  
Once Odo is properly soapy, Nerys says, “Take the washcloth and wash off the soap now.”

  
He picks up the small square of fabric and rubs it briefly over his right arm, but he drops it onto the floor almost as soon as it makes contact with his skin. Nerys asks him what the problem is.

  
“It’s rough,” Odo tells her. “It’s very rough. It hurts.”

  
She frowns. Did the Founders give Odo some kind of skin condition or sensory disorder? She rejects the idea as soon as it enters her head. Odo’s always had a sensitivity to certain fabrics. This is probably the first time he’s touched one and had nerve endings to really _feel_ it, so the experience is probably alarming. Nerys takes the washcloth out of his hand and hangs it over the door handle, out of the way.

  
“If it hurts you, don’t use it.”

  
Odo nods and starts cleaning himself again, then stops. He glances over at the washcloth. “I should try the cloth again,” he decides, and Nerys, against her better judgement, hands it over to him. He hands it back to her. “You know how much pressure to use,” he explains. “Show me.”

  
Nerys takes the washcloth in her hands and wets it in the water coming from above them. She presses the cloth to Odo’s chest, lightly, using the lightest touch she can while still making sure that the soap is being washed off. She can feel him through the fabric. Odo’s body is just as smooth as it looks, but he’s softer than she expected him to be. He feels a bit like Jadzia’s legs right after they’ve been shaved.

  
This whole time, Nerys has been watching Odo’s face for any adverse reaction to the washcloth. For a while, he seemed fine, but when she begins to wash the soap off of his arms, he flinches away.

  
She stops immediately and asks what’s wrong, again, although she’s pretty sure of the answer this time.

  
“I don’t understand,” Odo says with a sigh. He glares at the washcloth. “You seem to be unbothered by this, but it feels like sandpaper to me.”

  
Nerys shrugs. “If you don’t like it, we won’t use it. Just let the water wash off the soap, it works just as well.”

  
Odo nods and holds each part of his body that still has soap on it under the water, one at a time. It takes longer than using a washcloth would have, but there’s no time constraint here. Odo can take as long as he wants.

  
He doesn’t spend too long rinsing off. Nerys is shutting off the water and stepping out of the shower before she knows it. Odo uses the full-body dryer setting before he gets out, because he doesn’t want to drip water all over the habitat ring on the way back to his quarters. Nerys wraps a towel around herself and decides to air-dry; supposedly it’s better for hair health and prevents wrinkles. She also hates the noise that the dryer setting makes.

  
Odo steps out of the shower completely dry. He puts his clothing back on slowly, like he’s still not used to having to do that. Nerys smiles to herself as she watches him. She doubts he owns a set of pajamas.

  
“Thank you,” he says to her with a nod in her direction. He doesn’t meet her eyes, but that’s alright. Odo’s never been good with eye contact. Nerys knows that it’s painful for him, so she doesn’t push it.

  
“It’s the least I can do, Constable,” she replies with a smile. He smiles back at her and places his hand on the door handle; it’s a request to depart. She nods and opens the door for him. They walk across the main room together.

  
They reach the door that leads out of her quarters and back into the main corridor of the habitat ring. They both pause, and Nerys gently puts her hands on his shoulder again, the same way she did when he was having second thoughts in the bathroom. He leans into the touch this time, but in such a small way that if she had been focusing on anything else, she would have missed it. They remain in that position for about two minutes, a short period compared to the amount of time they spent in the shower together, before Nerys lets her hands slide down Odo’s arms and brings them back to herself.

  
“Goodnight, Odo.”

  
“Goodnight, Nerys.”

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment and/or a kudos yall *tips cowboy hat*


End file.
